The Problem of the Day

Volume X - Sufi Mysticism

THE PROBLEM OF THE DAY

The Present Need of the World

No one with any sense who observes keenly the present
condition of humanity, will deny the fact that the world
today needs the religion. Why I say the religion
and not a religion is because there are many religions
in existence which might be called a religion; but
what is needed is something else; it is the religion.
Must this be a new religion? If it were to be a new religion
it could not be called the religion; then it would
be like many other religions. What I call the religion
is that which one can see by rising above the sects and
differences that divide men; and by understanding the
religion one will understand all religions.

I do not mean that all the religions are not religion;
they are the notes; but there is the music, and that music
is the religion. Every religion strikes a note, a
note that answers the demand of humanity in a certain epoch.
Yet the source of every note is the same music which manifests
when the notes are arranged harmoniously together. All the
different religions are the different notes, and when they
are thus arranged together they make music. One might ask
why at each epoch not all the music was given; why only
a single note. The answer is that there are times in the
life of an infant when a rattle is sufficient; for the violin
another time in life is more appropriate. During the time
of the Chaldeans, Arabs, Greeks, and Romans, different religious
ideals were brought to humanity. To the few music was brought,
to many only a note; and this shows that this music has
always existed, but that man in general was not ready to
grasp it and so was given only one note.

The consequence was that the one who was given the C
note fought with another who was given the G note, each
saying, 'The note given to me is the right note!' But in
reality all are right notes. Thus there is an outer substance
of religion that is the form, and an inner essence, which
is wisdom; and when wisdom has blessed the soul, then the
soul has heard the divine music. Those who tuned their hearts,
who raised their souls high enough, heard this divine music.
But those who played with their rattle, their single note,
disputed with one another. They would have refused a violin;
they were not ready for it and they would not have known
how to use it.

Today the world is more starved for religion that ever
before. The reason is that some simple souls, attached to
the faith of their ancestors, hold their faith in esteem.
For they consider religion necessary in life. But many others,
with intelligence, reason and understanding of life, rebel
against religion, as the child grows away from its rattle,
for it is no longer interested in it. So today, the condition
is that religion remains in the hands of those who have
kept to its outer form through devotion and loyalty to their
ancestors' faith; and those who are, so to speak, grown-up
in mind and spirit and who want something better, but cannot
find anything. Their soul hungers for music, yet when they
ask for music they are given a rattle; and then they throw
away the rattle and say that they do not care for music.
Yet at the same time they have an inner yearning for the
soul's music, and without it their life remains empty.

There are few that recognize this fact, and fewer still
who are willing to admit to it. The psychological condition
of humanity has become such that a person with intelligence
refuses the music, he does not want it; but because he still
wants something, he calls it by another name. Traveling
for ten years in the Western world, I have come into contact
with people of great intelligence, thinkers, men of science;
and in them I see the greatest yearning for that religious
spirit. They are longing for it every moment of their lives,
for they feel, with all their education and science, that
there is an emptiness in themselves, and they want it filled.
Yet if one speaks to them of religion, they say, 'No, no,
speak of something else; we do not want religion!' This
means that they only know the rattle part of religion and
not the violin part. They do not think that anything can
exist that is different from a rattle, and yet there is
perplexity in their heart and a spiritual craving which
is not answered even by all their learned and scientific
pursuits.

Therefore what is needed in the world today is a reconciliation
between the religious man and the one who runs away from
religion. But what can we do when even in the Christian
religion we see so many sects, one opposing the other, while
the Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, and many other religions also
consider that no religion is worth thinking about except
their own? To me these different religions are like the
different organs of the body, cut up and thrown apart. It
seems as if one arm of the same person were cut off and
were rising up to fight the other. Both are arms of the
same person, and when that person is complete, when all
these parts are brought together, then there is the
religion.

Then what is the purpose of the Sufi movement? To make
a new religion? No, it is to bring together the different
organs of one body as they are meant to be united. And what
is our method, how do we work to bring about such a reconciliation?
By realizing for ourselves that the essence of all religions
is one, and that that essence is wisdom; by considering
that wisdom to be our religion, whatever be our own form.
The Sufi movement has members belonging to many different
faiths and who have not given up their own religion. On
the contrary, they are firmer in their own faith through
understanding the faiths of others. From the narrow point
of view, people may find fault with them because they do
not hate, mistrust, and criticize the religion of others.
They have respect for the scriptures which millions of people
have held to be sacred, though these scriptures do not belong
to their own religion. They desire to study and appreciate
other scriptures, and to find confirmation of the fact that
all wisdom comes from one source, both the wisdom of the
East and of the West. The Sufi movement, therefore, is not
a sect; it can be anything but a sect; and if it ever became
one it would be quite contrary to the ideal with which it
was begun. For its main ideal is to remove differences and
distinctions which divide mankind, and this ideal is attained
by the realization of the one source of all human beings,
and also the goal, both of which we call God.